I need some beginners help with manipulating data on the web...

[Guest]

Can somebody help me out with the flow of this? I can figure out the rest on
my own, but I'm having a little trouble getting kickstarted.

Basically, I have a web form that accepts data. I need that data to be
posted to an online database which then exports the data (automatically if
possible) into a daily report in excel which can be downloaded once or twice
a day.

Can someone help me with the logical flow of how to accomplsh this. Here's
what I think, let me know if I'm even on the right track.

I create a web form in ASP.NET. I get web hosting with an Access database
included. Somehow make the form post that data to the database (need help
here) and then get that database to automatically export (once or twice a
day) that data into an excel spreadsheet which is viewable from somewhere.

I hope someone can help, I'm a DB newbie but I've been ordered to make this
happen by next Friday. Somebody help save my skin
Edit/Delete Message

 

[Ed Warren]

First you have to explain your setup better.

The approaches are different depending upon how much access you have to the
web server. In the best case you have full access to the server (e.g.
internal to the organization), can upload your code and your database and
you know the file structure, etc. In that case you can use a web interface
(via a web service) to load the data and then access the server directly
via excel and/or msAccess to produce the reports you need (whenever you need
them).

If you only have ftp access to the web server, then all will have be done
via the web interface.

If you are using ASP.net in Visual Studio, then you can put together a web
application that will run on the server read/write data via an asp.net web
service feeding an asp.net web application. Then you can get your data back
with an application that reads the asp.net web service for the required data
and load that into your Excel spreadsheet.

However, all of this is dependent on your knowledge of asp.net, asp.net
services, and asp.net applications. (and if the web server will allow
read/write access to the access database!! (that's first!!)

Here is an attempt at the data flow

Post Data [client -->http request --> server -->asp.net form (maybe a
dataGrid) -->MsAccess ]
Get Data for Display
Request: [client -->Http request -->server -->asp.net --> MsAccess]
Response: [client<--http response <--Server <--asp.net web service
<--MsAccess]

What a web service does it package up a set of data for you and put in XML
format which MsEcel can read directly.

I wish you a lot of luck, you need it to get all this working in less than a
week considering internet security issues, testing etc.

Hope your not too attached to that skin :>

Ed Warren.

 

[MacDermott]

If you already know ASP.NET, just use ADO.NET to write to the Access
database - you can use the System.IO.OLEDB namespace.

Access, however, is a file server database; it has no "brains" of its own,
so getting the database itself to export data may not be the most effective
method.
You can, however, set up another ASP.NET page which reads "real time" from
the Access database. Then your users can download this data whenever they
wish.